Correction of over-the-air signals

ABSTRACT

Correction of errors within over-the-air signaling is contemplated. The error correction may include correcting over-the-air signaling used to facilitate transmitting content, broadcast television, etc. according to error correction data transmitted separately from the over-the-air signaling. A receiver may be configured to process the over-the-air signaling according to the error correction data so as to facilitate the contemplated error correction.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.14/259,061, filed Apr. 22, 2014, the disclosure and benefit of which isincorporated in its entirety by reference herein.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to over-the-air signaling or other typesof signaling where wireless transmissions take place between atransmitter and a receiver, such as but not necessary limited to thoseassociated with broadcast television.

BACKGROUND

The over-the air broadcast of television or other content signaling canproduce spotty reception for certain receivers depending on theirrelative positioning to a transmitter. In apartment complexes, forexample, an apartment on one floor may receive signals without receptionerrors while another receiver on a neighboring floor may experiencereception errors and/or a receiver on one floor may experience receptionerrors at different points of the transmission than a neighboringreceiver on another floor. The reception errors may result from anynumber of signaling influences and may generally manifest in aninability of the receiver to properly decode an entirety of thecorresponding transmission. In the case of television signaling where aplurality of video frames are transmitted using over-the-air signaling,the reception errors may result in an inability of a receiver toproperly decode an entirety of a television program, movie, etc., whichmay result in the resulting playback or display having gaps or otherinterruptions inconsistent with the original transmission.

Forward error correction (FEC) codes, parity and other information maybe included within the over-the-air signaling to facilitate correctingsome reception errors, assuming that the FEC codes or other errorcorrection data transmitted through the over-the-air signaling is itselfproperly received at the receiver. One non-limiting aspect of thepresent invention contemplates facilitating correction of receptionerrors when the FEC codes or other error correction data transmittedwith the over-the-air signaling are improperly received and/or otherwiseinsufficient to facilitate proper access to the content.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIGS. 1-3 diagrammatically illustrate aspects of ATSC televisionsignaling.

FIG. 4 illustrates an over-the-air signaling system in accordance withone non-limiting aspect of the present invention.

FIG. 5 illustrates a flowchart of a method for improving over-the-airsignaling in accordance with one non-limiting aspect of the presentinvention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

As required, detailed embodiments of the present invention are disclosedherein; however, it is to be understood that the disclosed embodimentsare merely exemplary of the invention that may be embodied in variousand alternative forms. The figures are not necessarily to scale; somefeatures may be exaggerated or minimized to show details of particularcomponents. Therefore, specific structural and functional detailsdisclosed herein are not to be interpreted as limiting, but merely as arepresentative basis for teaching one skilled in the art to variouslyemploy the present invention.

The present invention relates to facilitating error correction forover-the-air signaling used to facilitate transmission of television,video, audio, phone calls, data and other content where forward errorcorrection (FEC), parity or other data is added to the correspondingtransmissions to facilitate subsequent correction of errors. The presentinvention applies equally to any number of signaling protocols andstandards, such as but not necessary limited to orthogonal frequencydivision multiplexing (OFDM) and 8-VSB. While the scope andcontemplation of the present invention is not necessarily limited to anyone particular signaling protocol or standard, the description ispredominantly set forth with respect to A/53: ATSC Digital TelevisionStandard, Parts 1-6, 2007, as published by The Advanced TelevisionSystems Committee (ATSC), the disclosure of which is hereby incorporatedby reference in its entirety herein. An ATSC related portion of thedisclosure of this patent document contains material which is not knownto be, but may be subject to copyright protection. The ATSC standard isnoted as one of many standards that employs FEC to facilitate correctingreception errors and certain materials associated therewith arereproduced herein for exemplary non-limiting purposes to demonstrate howthe present invention may be adapted for use therewith.

FIGS. 1-3 and the associated descriptions are reproduced from theDigital Television Standard noted above to illustrate a system designedto transmit high quality video and audio and ancillary data over asingle 6 MHz channel. The system can deliver reliably about 19 Mbps ofthroughput in a 6 MHz terrestrial broadcasting channel and about 38 Mbpsof throughput in a 6 MHz cable television channel. According to thismodel, the digital television system can be seen to consist of threesubsystems: source coding and compression; service multiplex andtransport and RF/transmission. The source coding and compression refersto the bit rate reduction methods, also known as data compression,appropriate for application to the video, audio, and ancillary digitaldata streams. The term “ancillary data” includes control data,conditional access control data, and data associated with the programaudio and video services, such as closed captioning and can also referto independent program services. The purpose of the coder is to minimizethe number of bits needed to represent the audio and video information.The digital television system employs the MPEG-2 video stream syntax forthe coding of video and the Digital Audio Compression (AC-3) Standardfor the coding of audio. The service multiplex and transport refers todividing the digital data stream into “packets” of information, uniquelyidentifying each packet or packet type, and the appropriate methods ofmultiplexing video data stream packets, audio data stream packets, andancillary data stream packets into a single data stream.

The transport mechanism may support interoperability among digitalmedia, such as terrestrial broadcasting, cable distribution, satellitedistribution, recording media, and computer interfaces, was a primeconsideration. The digital television system employs the MPEG-2transport stream syntax for the packetization and multiplexing of video,audio, and data signals for digital broadcasting systems (ISO/IEC13818-1), the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference inits entirety herein. The RF/transmission refers to channel coding andmodulation. The channel coder takes the data bit stream and addsadditional information that can be used by the receiver to reconstructthe data from the received signal which, due to transmissionimpairments, may not accurately represent the transmitted signal. Themodulation (or physical layer) uses the digital data stream informationto modulate the transmitted signal. The modulation subsystem offers twomodes: a terrestrial broadcast mode (8-VSB), and a high data rate mode(16-VSB). FIG. 2 illustrates a functional block diagram of the MainService where incoming data is randomized and then processed for forwarderror correction (FEC) in the form of Reed-Solomon (RS) coding (20 RSparity bytes are added to each MPEG-2 packet), one-sixth data fieldinterleaving and two-thirds rate trellis coding. The randomization andFEC processes are not applied to the sync byte of the transport packet,which is represented in transmission by a Data Segment Sync signal.Following randomization and forward error correction processing, thedata packets are formatted into Data Frames for transmission and DataSegment Sync and Data Field Sync are added. FIG. 3 shows how the data(frames) are organized for transmission.

FIG. 4 illustrates an over-the-air signaling system 10 in accordancewith one non-limiting aspect of the present invention. The system 10illustrates an exemplary configuration were a source/transmitter 12emits over-the air signaling 14 for receipt at a receiver 16, such as tofacilitate transmission of television signals, audio signals, videossignals, cellular phone signals, etc. The system 10 may apply to anytype of wireless or wireline signaling and is described predominantlyfor exemplary non-limiting purposes with respect to the above-describedATSC signaling. The source 12 may be configured in the manner describedabove to facilitate transmitting the wireless, over-the-air signalingusing vestigial sideband modulation of corresponding frames with eightor sixteen discrete amplitude levels. The signaling may include audioand/or video frames, interchangeable referred to as data frames orframes, being transmitted to the receiver with FEC codes, parity orother error correction data useable by the receiver 16 to construct theframes from the modulated signaling. Three source frames 20, 22, 24 areshown for descriptive purposes as any number of frames may betransmitted and the frames may be transmitted in non-linear ornon-sequential order depending on the content being transmitted. Theover-the-air signaling may be broadcasted/multi-casted to a particulargeographical area and/or unicast to the receiver.

The source 12 is shown to transmit a second set of signaling 28 to aheadend 30 to facilitate delivering copied source frames 32, 34, 36using over-the-air signaling and/or as non-over-the air signaling, suchas through a coaxial cable, fiber optic or other wireline mediumconnected between the source 12 and the headend 30. The headend 30 maybe configured to facilitate subsequently transmitting a plurality ofcable frames 40, 42, 44 over a hybrid-fiber coax (HFC) medium to thereceiver 16 or through other suitable broadcast/multicast and/or unicasttransmission. The cable frames 40, 42, 44 are separately labeled fromthe other frames 20 1022, 24, 32, 34, 36 in order to demonstrate onenon-limiting aspect of the present invention where the headend 30associated with a cable service provider repackages content from thesource 12 for transmission to the receiver 16 or multiple receivers (notshown) over a cable network or other proprietary system. The cableframes 40, 42, 44 may be copies or replications of the frames 32, 34, 36issued from the source or re-packaged or re-processed constructsindependently generated at the headend 30 to facilitate one or more ofthe operations contemplated herein. The headend 30 is illustrated forexemplary non-limiting purposes as any other device having capabilitiessufficient to enable the operations described herein may be used withoutdeviating from the scope contemplation of the present invention, e.g., acable modem termination system (CMTS), Internet service provider (ISP),etc.

The receiver 16 may be configured to facilitate receiving the signalingtransmitted from the source 12 and the headend 30 at a correspondingfirst and second interface 50, 52. The first interface 50 is illustratedas an antenna or other suitable wireless interface (a single antenna isshown but the antenna may include multiple antennas or an antenna arraysufficient to facilitate multiple-import multiple-output (MIMO) or longterm evolution (LTE) signaling) and the second interface 52 isillustrated as a coaxial cable interface or other wireline interface.While the first and second interfaces 50, 52 are illustrated anddescribed as respective wireless wireline interfaces, the interfaces maybe configured differently without deviating from the scope contemplationof the present invention, e.g., a common interface may be utilized if itis sufficient to receive wireless signals from the source 12 andwireless or wireline signals from the headend 30. The first and secondinterfaces 50, 52 are described in order to demonstrate one non-limitingaspect of the present invention where frames or other signalingassociated with the content being transmitted from the source 12 areseparately or independently delivered to the receiver 16, such asthrough different networks and/or delivery mediums associated with thesource and headend 12, 30. A controller 56 may be included to facilitatecontrolling and/or processing signals with interfaces 50, 52 and/orother interfaces (not shown) on the receiver 16.

The receiver 16 may be configured as a set-top box (STB), a gateway, atelevision, a computer or a component included in a computer tablet, amobile or cellular phones or other device having capabilities sufficientto facilitate operations contemplated herein. As one non-limiting aspectof the present invention contemplates facilitating television signalingusing the ATSC standard, the receiver 16 is described as including adecoder 58 or media player having a buffer and/or other mechanismssufficient to facilitate displaying or otherwise interfacing audioand/or video carried within the source and/or cable frames to a displayor other user interface. The controller 56 may include a non-transitorycomputer-readable medium having a plurality of non-transitoryinstructions operable with a processor (not shown) to facilitatecontrolling the receiver 16 or otherwise enabling execution of theoperations and processes contemplated herein. A switch 60 may beincluded to enable the controller 56 to selectively determine which oneor more frames are delivered to the decoder 58, e.g., to selectivelycontrol delivery of the source and/or cable frames on an individualframe or multi-frame basis to the decoder 58. The switch 60 is shown tobe operable between a first position sufficient to connect the firstinterface 50 to the decoder 58 and a second position sufficient tofacilitate connecting the second interface 52 to the decoder 58(Optionally, signaling processing may be required to compensate fordiffering signaling formats for the first and second interfaces 50, 52).The switch is only shown for illustrative purposes as the correspondingoperations may be achieved through digital signal processing (DSP) orother suitable software controls, i.e., without use of the switch 60.

The receiver 16 is diagrammatically illustrated to highlight mainfunctional elements as it may be configured differently and/or mayinclude different communication paths or capabilities to achieve theoperations and results contemplated by the present invention tofacilitate improving over-the-air signal transmissions. One non-limitingaspect of the present invention contemplates improving such over-the-airor other wireless signaling transmissions used to transmit televisionsignals by enabling the receiver 16 to process the over-the-airsignaling (e.g., the wireless received source frames) and according tothe non-over-the-air signaling (e.g., the wireless and/or wirelinereceived cables frames) when the over-the-air signaling is improperlyreceived or other reception errors occur. The controller 56 may beconfigured to assess reception errors, decoding incapability or otherproblems attendant to an inability of the decoder 58 to properlyinterface the over-the-air signaling or to otherwise replicate thatoriginal or intended form of the over-the-air transmitted content. Thecontroller 56, for example, may monitor processing or other operationsbeing performed at the decoder 58 to determine reception errors, such asbut not necessarily limited to the reception errors identified abovewhere the particular error is determined at a relative to a currentposition of the receiver 16, e.g., one receiver in the home experience areception area while a neighboring or nearby receiver may experience noreception errors or different reception errors.

The controller 56 may be configured to facilitate creating or otherwisegenerating corrections for the reception errors or to address otherneeds to supplement or re-create the source frames 20, 22, 24 receivedthrough the over-the-air signaling (any errors requiring correction arehereinafter referred to as reception errors even if the errors are notparticular to the receiver or if the errors do not occur at thereceiver). The corrections may be generated differently depending on theparticular reception error or the needs of the decoder 58 and aredescribed for exemplary non-limiting purposes to correspond with thedecoder 58 being provided FEC codes or other parity data sufficient tofacilitate re-creating source frames 20, 22, 24 or other signalingreceived through the over-the-air transmissions and/or the decoder beingprovided independent copies of the affected source frames 20, 22, 24such that the output frames are entirely re-created solely fromaudio/video provided through the cable frames 40, 42, 44, e.g., throughretransmission of the over-the-air signaling. Optionally, timestamps orother timing information may be included within the source/cable framesto facilitate generating and timing insertion of the contemplatedcorrections.

The cable frames 40, 42, 44 transmitted to the second interface 52 maybe configured to facilitate delivering correction data to the receiver16 for use in generating the contemplated corrections. The correctiondata may be the FEC codes included within the source frames 32, 34, 36transmitted to the headend 30 and/or the entire source frames 32, 34, 36transmitted to the headend 30, optionally with some additional syncing,timing or other data network attendant to facilitating the transmissionthereof from the headend to the receiver. In the case of providing onlythe FEC codes, the cable frames 40, 42, 44 may not include theaudio/video data that would be included when generating the correctionsas entirely new frames. The ability of the present invention to providethe receiver 16 with information sufficient to facilitate re-creatingthe over-the-air transmitted frames subject to reception errors usingFEC codes and/or entirely new frames that are unlikely to be susceptibleto the same reception errors due to being transmitted through the secondinterface may be particularly beneficial in improving the over-the-airtelevision signaling or other over-the-air content signaling by enablingthe receiver 16 to selectively switch between communication mediumsdepending on signaling performance.

One non-limiting aspect of the present invention contemplates thereceiver 16 operating in a preferential mode where signaling through oneof the first and second interfaces 50, 52 is preferred over the other.Signaling through the first interface 50 may be preferred over thesecond interface 52, for example, due to retransmission costs or othersignaling costs associated with transmitting the cable frames 40, 42, 44via the cable network or other proprietary network associated with thesecond interface 52. The over-the-air signaling, at least from a cableservice provider or other data service provider point of view, may beessentially free whereas supporting transmission of the same content ormaterial through the second interface 52 may not be essentially free dueto attendant bandwidth consumption. While the headend 30 is shown tocommunicate with the second interface 52, a server or other device maysimilarly communicate the correction data (e.g., cable frames) throughInternet Protocol (IP) signaling, such as that carried over the Internetor web. The delivery of the correction data through the Internet may bean option to facilitate delivery to the second interface 52 over adifferent communication medium, particular one suitable to communicatingthrough non-proprietary interfaces such as those typically associatedwith cable networks.

Optionally, the receiver 16 may be configured to share the source and/orcable frames or other data provided through the first and secondinterfaces 50, 52 to other devices or receivers within the home orconnected to a common network, such as using Multimedia over CoaxAlliance (MoCA) signaling, Wi-Fi signaling, peer-to-peer networking,etc. The capability to share the correction data amongst multiplereceivers may be beneficial in order to enable each receiver toindividually determine its own reception errors and to correct thoseerrors using the techniques described herein. The over-the-air signalingreceived through the first interface 50 may be similarly shared amongstother devices connected within the home or a shared network tofacilitate interfacing content with other devices, such as a secondscreen application or television lacking the receiver capabilitiessufficient to receive the signaling associated with the first and secondinterfaces 50, 52 and/or in the event a home includes a single gatewayfor interfacing content throughout. The first and/or second interfaces50, 52 may facilitate MIMO signaling, such as in the manner described inU.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 14/181,640, 14/181,641 and 14/181,643,the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference in theirentireties herein.

FIG. 5 illustrates a flowchart 70 of a method for improving over-the-airsignaling in accordance with one non-limiting aspect of the presentinvention. The method may be embodied in a computer-readable mediumhaving a plurality of non-transitory instructions operable with thereceiver or other sufficiently configured device to facilitate theoperations contemplated herein. Like the illustrations above, the methodis predominantly described with respect to facilitating correction ofreception errors included within the ATSC or other television relatedsignaling so as to enable the decoder to facilitate properly interfacingaudio/video frames with a user or display. This is done without limitingthe scope contemplation of the present invention as the presentinvention fully contemplates facilitating correction of reception errorsassociated with any type of content and not necessarily just signalingassociated with over-the-air multicast/unicast television. The methodalso presumes the use of FEC codes to facilitate re-creating orotherwise re-constructing frames as other parity data or information canbe similarly used without deviating from the scope contemplation of thepresent invention.

Block 72 relates to determining one or more reception errors inover-the-air signaling transmitted to a receiver. The reception errorsmay correspond with any inability of a decoder or other interface on areceiver lacking an ability to properly interface received signalingwith a participant. The reception error determinations may includeidentifying a particular frame, timestamp or other sequence indicatorassociated with the underlying content, such as to facilitateidentifying each portion or length of the signaling experiencing areception error and/or to differentiate one reception error from anotheraccording to time or sequence. Block 74 relates to determining errorcorrection data. The error correction data may be determined fromsignaling received separately or independently from the over-the-airsignaling, such as through a separate medium or network over which thecorrection data may be transmitted without being susceptible or unlikelyto be susceptible to the reception errors affecting the over-the-airsignaling. The error correction data may correspond with are-transmission of the same content as that being transmitted throughthe over-the-air signaling and/or a smaller subset of the correspondingsignaling, such as but not necessary limited to the FEC codes or othererror correction data transmitted along with the content included withinthe over-the-air signaling.

Block 76 relates to determining buffering needed at the receiver. Thebuffering may relate to a period of time needed for the receiver tobuffer the over-the-air signaling in order to enable receipt of thecorresponding correction data prior to the matching or related portionof the over-the-air signaling being displayed or otherwise interfacedfor output. The buffering may be necessary due to the over-the-airsignaling arriving at the receiver prior to the matching correctiondata, e.g., in the event the correction data is generated from the sametransmission is over-the-air signaling, it may take longer for that datato reach the receiver than the corresponding over-the-air signaling dueto propagation delays associated with the processing necessary tofacilitate its transmission to the receiver. In the event the correctiondata were to experience a quicker passage to the receiver than theover-the-air signaling, then a similar buffering analysis may beperformed in order to ensure is that the correction data or correctionframes align with corresponding frames in the over-the-air signaling,optionally with a device upstream of the receiver buffering thecorrection data instead of the receiver performing the buffering. Thebuffering determination may be calculated to be at least as long as anelapse time associated with the difference in arrival time betweenmatching frames of the over-the-air signaling and the correction data. Acalculation may be performed by the receiver and/or a device upstreamthereof having a preview of signaling transmission times for any numberof receivers, such as at the headend to ensure signals arrive just intime.

Block 78 relates to creating corrections for each one or more receptionerror. The corrections may generally correspond with a re-creation ofthe frames or other portions of the over-the-air signaling experiencingthe reception error. The re-creations may be played back or otherwiseinserted or provided to the decoder in place of the portion(s) of theover-the-air signaling having the reception error(s) so as to facilitatedisplay of the content as originally intended by the source. Optionally,advertisements or other media may be inserted within the re-creationaccording to the correction data so as to enable digital programinsertion or other receiver-level customization of the contentassociated with the over-the-air signaling, which may be beneficial inenabling a service provider associated with transmitting the correctiondata to provide advertisements or otherwise gain some benefit from thereceiver relying upon its correction data to adjust or otherwiseimproved performance of the over-the-air television signaling. Thecorrection data may be provided from the headend to multiple receiversthrough a multicast such that multiple receivers received the samecustomizations/corrections and/or the correction data may be providedunicast on a per receiver basis so that individual receivers may utilizedifferent customizations/corrections.

The corrections may be generated using the correction data by matchingtimestamps or other identifiers to facilitate determining matching arerelated portions of the over-the-air data in the correction data. Oncethe related portions are identified, the correction data may be appliedto the over-the-air signaling to generate the corrections andcorresponding insertion or other manipulation necessary to facilitateits use in place of the error affected portion of the over-the-airsignaling. One non-limiting aspect of the present invention contemplatesthe correction data being used to transmit the FEC codes included withinthe over-the-air signaling so that any improperly received portions ofthe over-the-air signaling can be re-created from the corresponding FECcodes transmitted as the correction data. One non-limiting aspect of thepresent invention contemplates the correction data being used totransmit entire frames or re-transmission of the over-the-air televisionsignals so that any improperly received portions of the over-the-airsignaling can be re-created from entire frames or other matchingsignaling transmitted as a correction data. Optionally, the receiver maybe configured or instructed to selectively determine whether to generatethe creations by applying the FEC codes to the received over-the-airsignaling or instead avoid processing of the over-the-air signalingaltogether in favor of reproducing the underlying content solely fromthe matching re-transmission included within the correction data.

As supported above, one non-limiting aspect of the present inventioncontemplates a switch or other logical constructs sufficient to enable areceiver to selectively use a pure antenna (first interface) or a purecable (second interface) depending on quality of over-the-air signalingor other operational constraints, e.g., it may be typically desirable toutilize over-the-air signaling while at other times it may be desirableto switch between the over-the-air signaling in the cable signaling orto entirely reliant on the cable signaling (cable signaling is noted butother mediums may be used or associated with the second interface). Thecapabilities to selectively determine which one or more interfaces arerelied upon by a receiver may be beneficial for a corresponding a cableoperator or a multiple system operator (MSO) to control a portion or apercentage of their subscribers receiving or relying upon contentdelivery through over-the-air signaling. Additionally, the presentinvention contemplates a “sometimes” cable and “sometimes” antennasolution so as to enable a cable operator to facilitate allocation ofbandwidth or other network resources depending on the quality of theover-the-air signaling, e.g., when the signaling is sufficient, theover-the-air signaling may be utilized in order to spare or allocatenetwork resources to other bandwidth consuming operations, such as toreclaim bandwidth to support bandwidth intensive operations, such asunicast of particular television programs or channels to multiplereceivers. A service provider may be able to provide switched-digital orother periodic channel delivery to subscribers by forcing receivers totune to over-the-air signaling for some channels so that the bandwidthtypically consumed with transmitting those channels can instead be usedto transmit unicast channels or temporarily support additional channels.

Various aspects of the present invention may include: making a TVpicture from the cable system data even if no off-air antenna isconnected to the STB; making a TV picture from the cable system datawhen an off-air antenna is connected, even if the off-air signal isunidentifiable or not present; making a TV picture with the help of thecable system data (even full help) when the off-air signal isidentifiable; and making a TV picture with the help of the cable systemdata (even full help) when the timing of the off-air signal can bedetermined. Optionally, variable delay may be utilized to synchronizethe cable signal with the broadcast signals for some of the cases above.Other variants may include TV signaling being singlecast to thesubscriber, so required delay is determined by the cable operator and/orTV signaling being multicast to all subscribers, so required delay isprogrammed by the STB (e.g. shift register) the number of bits in a STBsshift register is not too bad, maybe only 2500 bytes to cover a delayvariation of 100 km.

One non-limiting aspect of the present invention contemplates an 8VSBtransmission starts a segment with 4 symbol sync. The 8VSB in thereceiver in the home first locates the segment sync timing (optional)and next it receives an uncorrupted future signal segment of the off-airsignal in analog baseband format from the Web and convolves the receivedoff-air signal with the uncorrupted future signal segment to obtain atiming offset number from some reference point, which may be thetransmitter. Using the timing offset, the Web 8VSB broadcast serverstarts providing backup FEC blocks to the off-air receiver. Thearchitecture of the FEC decoder may include a trellis decoder,de-interleaver, Reed-Solomon (RS) decoder and de-randomizer. If thebackup FEC block from the Web server is needed because the received FECblock is bad, it may be used, otherwise the off-air signal may be used.Statistics may be gathered from off-air receiver to identify apercentage of FEC blocks that were erred. Other higher or lower levelmethods of supplying the correct signal, including symbol level, datasegment or field sync segment may be utilized without deviating from thescope contemplation of the present invention.

One non-limiting aspect of the present invention relates to transmittingFEC error correction codes over a cable network to improve reception ofover-the-air broadcast TV signals. This may be accomplished with acustomer attaching an antenna to a set top box to receive over-the-aircontent. This content can be stored on a DVR, distributed throughout thehouse via MoCA or Wifi, or displayed on a local TV. It can also beintegrated into the cable operator's channel. The cable operator canthen transmit FEC error correction codes sufficient for the STB tore-create a ‘clean’ signal. Optionally, the cable operator may avoidhaving to send down the original signal, and the STB can instead rely onover-the-air reception to provide the original signal. If the antenna isdisconnected from the STB, the STB may optionally be configured to avoidre-creating the signal from the error correction codes depending onlicensing restrictions rather requirements. The STB can use a buffer toaccount for the difference in reception times between the over-the-airsignal and cable signal. This invention may eliminate the need for MSOshaving to retransmit broadcast signals over the cable plant—they rely onantenna reception. However, customers still get the cable QoE andchannel guide that they are used to with cable service.

While exemplary embodiments are described above, it is not intended thatthese embodiments describe all possible forms of the invention. Rather,the words used in the specification are words of description rather thanlimitation, and it is understood that various changes may be madewithout departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.Additionally, the features of various implementing embodiments may becombined to form further embodiments of the invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium havinginstructions executable with a processor of a server to facilitatecorrecting reception errors within signals being transmitted from atransmitter to a receiver, the instructions being sufficient tofacilitate: determining the reception errors to correspond with thereceiver being unable to properly display the signals; transmittingerror correction data to the receiver independently of the transmitterto facilitate correcting the reception errors; determining the receiverto be tuned to a first wireless channel of a plurality of wirelesschannels being broadcasted to the receiver; tuning the server to thefirst wireless channel; and transmitting the error correction data fromthe server to the receiver via the first wireless channel.
 2. Thenon-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 further comprisingthe instructions being sufficient to facilitate: tuning the server tothe first wireless channel throughout a period of time coinciding withthe receiver being tuned to the first wireless channel; and throughoutthe period of time, transmitting the error correction data from theserver to the receiver via the first wireless channel, therebytransmitting the error correction data form the server to the receiverwithout requesting retransmission of the error correction data from thetransmitter.
 3. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1further comprising the instructions being sufficient to facilitate:continuously recovering the error correction data from the signals or acopy of the signals while the receiver is receiving the signals from thetransmitter, the recovered error correction data omitting at least aportion of a content or a data file being transmitted with the signals.4. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 furthercomprising the instructions being sufficient to facilitate: determiningthe transmitter to be wirelessly broadcasting the signals to thereceiver; and transmitting the error correction data for wirelessreceipt at the receiver.
 5. The non-transitory computer-readable mediumof claim 1 further comprising the instructions being sufficient tofacilitate transmitting the error correction data to the receiver at afrequency differing from a frequency used by the transmitter of thesignals.
 6. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1further comprising the instructions being sufficient to facilitatetransmitting the error correction data to the receiver prior tooccurrence of the reception errors.
 7. The non-transitorycomputer-readable medium of claim 1 further comprising the instructionsbeing sufficient to facilitate: determining the receiver to be receivingthe signals wirelessly broadcasted from the transmitter; andtransmitting the error correction data for wired receipt at thereceiver.
 8. A receiver configured to facilitate transmission ofwireless signals comprising: a first interface configured tocontinuously receive the wireless signals; a second interface configuredto continuously receive error correction data transmitted separatelyfrom the wireless signals; a controller executing instructions storedwithin a non-transitory computer-readable medium to facilitatecorrecting errors in the wireless signals according to the errorcorrection data; and a buffer sufficient to buffer the error correctiondata received through the second interface when the error correctiondata is received at the second interface prior to a portion of thewireless signal correctable therewith being received at the firstinterface, and wherein the instructions are sufficient to facilitateretrieving the error correction data from the buffer when correcting theerrors associated therewith.
 9. The receiver of claim 8 wherein: thesecond interface is configured to continuously receive error correctiondata from a server operating independently of a transmitter transmittingthe wireless signals to the first interface; and the server generatesthe error correction data such that the error correction data omits atleast some of a content or a data file being transmitted with thewireless signals.
 10. A receiver configured to facilitate transmissionof wireless signals comprising: a first interface configured tocontinuously receive the wireless signals; a second interface configuredto continuously receive error correction data transmitted separatelyfrom the wireless signals; a controller executing instructions storedwithin a non-transitory computer-readable medium to facilitatecorrecting errors in the wireless signals according to the errorcorrection data; a third interface for facilitating display of thecontent to a viewer; and a buffer sufficient to buffer the wirelesssignals received through the first interface when received prior to theerror correction data associated therewith being received at the secondinterface, and wherein the instructions are sufficient to facilitatebuffering the wireless signals within the buffer for a period of timesufficient to delay display of the content at least until the errorcorrection data associated therewith is received at the secondinterface.
 11. The receiver of claim 10 wherein: the second interface isconfigured to continuously receive error correction data from a serveroperating independently of a transmitter transmitting the wirelesssignals to the first interface; and the server generates the errorcorrection data such that the error correction data omits at least someof a content or a data file being transmitted with the wireless signals.